Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah at the table

In Cairo of the Isma'ili caliphs, meals were not structured as "appetizer-main-dessert" but around the simât: a large leather or linen cloth spread on the ground, on which breads, green stews, fermented condiments, sweets, and cool drinks are laid out together. One eats with three fingers and a piece of bread, sharing the dishes. In contrast to the lavish court of his predecessors, Al-Hakim's stripped-down simât made renunciation and dietary decree an instrument of power.

The soul of medieval Egyptian cuisine: a handful of garlic crushed with salt and coriander, green or in seeds, sizzled in oil or clarified butter, then poured like a fragrant rain over soups and stews. It is what marks the famous mulukhiyya — that green dish which Al-Hakim, precisely, wished to make disappear.